_________________Hye-Jin Lee"The love for music. The respect for the composer. The desire to express something that reaches and moves the listener." (Montserrat Caballé about her main motivation for becoming a singer)

Very nice! lol...I hate that stupid finger-switching technique. This is why I don't play Scarlatti. I listened to her Chopin also. She has a very strange way of observing the Chopin rubato - you can tell that it's important to her to stay more or less in tempo, but she has wild surges, both in tempo and in dynamics. And she also has a thing for adding extra bass notes when she feels the written notes aren't powerful enough! But she is a very expressive pianist, and I enjoyed listening to her. Her tempo on 10/4 was simply breakneck, pushing Richter, so it's no surprise she missed a few notes!

Yes, I do it too. But only if I've heard one of the pros do it. Lang Lang does it in the 27/2 video and de Larrocha does it all over in Granados' music. Once I've heard it, I can't go back to playing it in the normal way. I just love all that bass.

_________________"Simplicity is the highest goal, achievable when you have overcome all difficulties." ~ Frederic Chopin

I listened to her Chopin also. She has a very strange way of observing the Chopin rubato - you can tell that it's important to her to stay more or less in tempo, but she has wild surges, both in tempo and in dynamics.

After I read your response, I listened to her some Chopin, too. (Before that I hadn't.) I don't like her Chopin... Her emotion is too much, quite unrestrained. I think that leads to that strange rubato. It is a pity that I cannot find that subtle and refined way from that Scarlatti there.

Anyway I listened to that Scarlatti a lot of time and got never bored. I just love that performance! I found her La Valse (Ravel), too and my jaw dropped. I never saw such a crazy power and technique. I don't know Rach well, but her Rach sounds much better than her Chopin. More subtle, more natural, more colorful. I read somewhere her next program is Bach's WTC. (The current or last one was whole cycles of Rach's Etudes-Tableaux and Chopin's Etudes on a single evening. I'm wondering how the young and thin girls like her or Alice Sara Ott (who played all the Etudes d'execition transcendante plus Waldstein sonata in a recital) have the stamina to play such a big program

_________________Hye-Jin Lee"The love for music. The respect for the composer. The desire to express something that reaches and moves the listener." (Montserrat Caballé about her main motivation for becoming a singer)

And she also has a thing for adding extra bass notes when she feels the written notes aren't powerful enough!

Then I like her already!

I had heard Friedrich Gulda adding some notes playing Mozart. He even changed the rhythm into a jazz style Actually I'm interested rather in pianists who simplify the original music through leaving out some notes, because I'm the member of SPPC Volodos does it. I haven't confirm that myself from hearing, but he said in a recent interview (after the recital in Wiener Musikverein Saal) that he leaves out many notes not only in concerts but also in the CD, "like all the professional pianists". Is this a truth? I mean, do many pros really do that? Anyway encouraged(? ) by it I started a piece in which I must leave out several notes

_________________Hye-Jin Lee"The love for music. The respect for the composer. The desire to express something that reaches and moves the listener." (Montserrat Caballé about her main motivation for becoming a singer)

Very interesting As another member of the SPPC, I am very encouraged by that . In fact, I have done it a few times on some Chopin mazurkas but did not mention it (and no one caught it). I'm also doing it on a Mompou piece right now - these guys had large hands - didn't they know who may be playing their music one day?

p.s. Happy Birthday, Samuel Barber (I just had to say that somewhere today)

_________________"Simplicity is the highest goal, achievable when you have overcome all difficulties." ~ Frederic Chopin

_________________Hye-Jin Lee"The love for music. The respect for the composer. The desire to express something that reaches and moves the listener." (Montserrat Caballé about her main motivation for becoming a singer)

Well, I guess that I'm a member. My pinky only reaches the same joint on 4 as Terez mentions.

Monica, what are you doing using "centimeters" (or "centimetres" for the Brits)?? We're in "Amarica" and don't use that new fangled European Metric Stuff Look what it did to Canada. They went metric and now all of their famous people come to the US (That momentary chauvinstic tirade was just a round about way of saying "what is 5 1/2 centimeters in inches? Now back to my work to establish world peace and universal love.)

centimeters - I don't know what came over me earlier. I've been a little under the weather this week so maybe it's the medicine...

But anyway, you guys say your pinkies measure up to the same knuckle line as us girls. Except your hands must be larger than ours and therefore your fingers are longer, so I'm not sure you can join our little club. Maybe if you're are nice, though....

_________________"Simplicity is the highest goal, achievable when you have overcome all difficulties." ~ Frederic Chopin

Well, our club is very young, so we haven't made any concrete rules yet The occasion to start such a club was the same complaint of Monica and me that the pinkies don't reach even the last joint of the ring fingers. The short pinky makes one very difficult to press not only a large chord but also those chords where one or two notes are stuffed within a octave. Then you must leave out a note in such chords or to play them in arpeggios which is often not allowed in a fast passage. If you are eligible for this club, you have to encounter those cases very often (Am I making a rule now? ).Anyway I nearly gave up practicing the second Scherzo of Chopin, because the F-Aflat-F chords which come several times gives me always frustration... Leaving out the A flat doesn't sound good, and an arpeggio is impossible there.

_________________Hye-Jin Lee"The love for music. The respect for the composer. The desire to express something that reaches and moves the listener." (Montserrat Caballé about her main motivation for becoming a singer)

Oh, I didn't see all the responses on the second page... Sorry Now I think the "relative" criterium (like to which joint do they reach...) doesn't help. We all should measure them like Monica did! But I don't know which method is the right one. Once my pinkies were 5 1/2 cm, at the other time they were 6 cm.

_________________Hye-Jin Lee"The love for music. The respect for the composer. The desire to express something that reaches and moves the listener." (Montserrat Caballé about her main motivation for becoming a singer)

There is a line where the pinky meets the hand and if you hold the ruler on the outside edge of the pinky at that line, then you can get a good measurement. Mine is 2 1/2 inches long or 5 1/2 centimeters. Not sure what would constitute a short pinky on a man, though.

Maybe we pianists with short pinkies should try what Robert Schumann did with that finger-stretching contraption. Not!

_________________"Simplicity is the highest goal, achievable when you have overcome all difficulties." ~ Frederic Chopin

Mine measures 3 inches, which according to a conversion thing on the web is 7.62 cm. I guess that that leaves me out. Plus, I don't have problems with most octaves with notes in between. I can only play white key 10ths and minor 10ths (w-w or w-b or b-w), which is a hassle when trying to do swing bass style piano with walking 10ths.

Not pinky related, but Hyun-Jung Lim will be playing in Paris in the coming week ; haven't checked much, but the program will be the complete Beethoven sonatas.

Anybody heard her on that kind of repertoire ? There is no entry fee, so I'll probably check it out (and follow it all week long if it's good), but I figured it was worth asking around about this relatively unknown pianist.

Not pinky related, but Hyun-Jung Lim will be playing in Paris in the coming week ; haven't checked much, but the program will be the complete Beethoven sonatas.

Anybody heard her on that kind of repertoire ? There is no entry fee, so I'll probably check it out (and follow it all week long if it's good), but I figured it was worth asking around about this relatively unknown pianist.

I saw the schedule on her Facebook. I'd like to listen to her playing, too, but don't know how, cause I'm not in Paris. Anyway I'm interested in your opinion about her.

_________________Hye-Jin Lee"The love for music. The respect for the composer. The desire to express something that reaches and moves the listener." (Montserrat Caballé about her main motivation for becoming a singer)

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